So why aren't you reading this?

>>8059631
Vollman just sounds like a low-rent Pynchon t b h.

vollman refuses to engage with the internet and consciously sets his books before the internet age to avoid having to write about it

to me that signifies a failure to engage with the modern world around him - which isn't bad inherently, but he wants to write books about the modern experience, but chooses to eschew a major part of it. that's silly and i think it just means he doesn't understand the world we live in as much as he'd like the reader to think

>>8059716

Are there any good writers that "engage with the internet" ?

All I've heard about is junot diaz and ready player one type crap.

Who cares anyway the internet is not that important.

>>8059727

There's not much to engage with other than shitty memes desu

>>8059727
not just internet but technology in general

the internet is just the major form of communication today. you can debate on whether the internet itself is important or different in kind from what came before, but to ignore how people communicate is stupid when you're talking about, you know, the modern world.

try richard powers

>>8059716
I know this feel.

All my writing is set in the early years of my life of long before I was born. It's not only that the modern world is a confusing place I don't know how to engage, but it's such an uninteresting place to me. I find the internet absolutely dreary, and I have no place in any of the mainstream or countercultures of the day. I'm an apathetic outsider. I like books which can comment on the society's cutting edge, but it's hard for me to get fired up about the present. Before artists and historians put it into context it just all seems like uninteresting noise to me. I guess it is a failure of living. How can I write about the modern world if I don't know how to live in it?

>>8059716
All ages are contemporaneous, my friend.

>>8059727
oh and pynchon does it in bleeding edge, and is in general much more insightful regarding tech and modernity than vollman, not just limited to the internet

hell even genre crap like stephenson is probably better to read than vollman if you want a book that "says something" about the modern world

>>8059745
sure, and as i said, you can easily ignore aspects of modern society if you write about, you know, the past (or hell the future). vollman wants to write about the late 20th/early 21st century but he doesn't want to actually say anything relevant to this time period.

you can do it without fixating on subject matter but vollman just falls flat on all aspects.

as >>8059705 said, he's just shittier pynchon

>>8059743
>>8059749
There's a reason Willy V. was a unabomber suspect.

>>8059727
Joshua Cohen, check out his novel Book of Numbers. It's all about the history of the internet

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>>8059727
I don't know about the "good writers" part, but this forced meme "engages" with the internet in a couple of chapters in the way you see in pic related. I'm only reading it because I got it while it was free. The only thing you can really say about this guy is that he's a veteran shitposter.

he writes like a pitchfork writer?

>>8059798
Roberto Pinchas is actually the best novelist of our generation

>>8059631
Novel structure is rage inducing

>>8059972
Even assuming this is somehow true, which is a huge assumption, it can't be much of an accomplishment.

When he finishes seven dreams, will that be the best contender for the title of great american novel?

>>8060028
seven dreams is gonna be even more corncobby than faulkner and yecarthy

>>8059798
>>8059972
>>8060011
I read the Amazon previews of some of these and they were dumb

>>8060048
A handful of UKers really seem to like him for some mysterious reason. I don't really get it either.

I've yet to see anyone discuss the internet in a non-aspergic way. It's really odd that people who I really respect can't pull it off. Even if one of our main modes of communication is texting or online messaging even that is close to impossible to not looking trite. I've wondered about this a lot, poetry can make it okay sometimes but I'm not sure if there's more than a few novels out there that handle it at a slightly above par level.

There's a lot of samefagging in this thread

>>8060108
22 replies with 13 unique posters? That just sounds like discussion to me.

>>8059716
this gave me cancer

>>8059631
I'm busy reading Red rising.

>>8059727
Towel In

Czech out Taipei

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>>8059743
>>8059749

Why are you so caught up with "the modern world" Why does every book have to "engage with the modern world" When did Vollmann ever claim to want to do that? Is Thucydides bad because he doesn't know what twitter is? Are you dense?

>>8059757

Okay I will.

>>8059798

No.

Also why do you fags like Pynchon so much? I would rather stare at a blank wall for five hours than read Pynchon.

>>8060214
>Why are you so caught up with "the modern world" Why does every book have to "engage with the modern world" When did Vollmann ever claim to want to do that? Is Thucydides bad because he doesn't know what twitter is? Are you dense?

go back and read my posts again

i explicitly said you dont have to engage with the modern world. but thats what vollman wants to do but he wants to do it while ignoring the actual modern world.

>>8060219

>but thats what vollman wants to do

No he doesn't.

>>8060214
Uh.. that's not Pynchon. Is it?

>>8060224
have you even read him? read about him/his interviews/statements?

>>8060106
How many ways are there to discuss it really? You can either do a depiction of what being online is like, which ends up being pointless and looking like that godawful excerpt up there, or you can mysticize the experience somehow which is never not cringeworthy. Casual mentions of cell phones, texts, or twitter or whatever are probably the way to go but that isn't enough for people who actually want the "internet experience" in their books.

>>8060256
>>8060106

gonna repeat my suggestion of richard powers. he does it very well in orfeo, though it's not the focus of the book (which is fine)

Anyone read any of Vollmann's Seven Dreams works? I have The Ice-Shirt but haven't read it yet

read generosity by powers

>>8059716

low rent criticism

Dude doesn't like the internet, doesn't write about it. So the fuck what? Show me the rule where it says you must write about whatever 's changing the world to be a serious writer. That's like whining about James Joyce not writing about telephones enough.

>>8060439
still no reading comprehension

he wants to write abou thte modern world but he doesnt want to write about it in a meaningful way. he's a parochial corncobber m8, get over it.

>>8060451
>writes historical fiction

>"This guy is just burning to write about the modern world!"

>writes more historical fiction

>"Haha, he can't do it."

>>8060456
see >>8060232

if you think vollman is setting out to write historical fiction you're severely misguided

>>8060451
a lot of his modern American writing is about street people. The internet doesn't have that profound of an effect on homesless drunks and whores.

>>8060459

this is fine. as i said there is absolutely nothing wrong with not writing about internet, or anything else really. but as i said he deliberately sets a lot of his stuff prior to the internet to avoid writing about it even though he wants to discuss what the internet entails in terms of surveillance and privacy in the late 20th and early 21st century.

read some of his interviews/about his life. he's extremely distrustful/skeptical of the internet, as well as the implications of privacy and surveillance. these are themes he discusses i his works, but he refuses to grapple with it head on.

>>8060475
ahh yeah that's somewhat of a fair point. I read his essay on being a Unabomber suspect yesterday and enjoyed it thoroughly.

>>8060475
you're some kind of stupid son of a bitch

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Daily reminder that William T Vollmann is the ugliest motherfucker alive

>>8060487
Great reply. You sure showed him.

>>8059631
Because I already did.

>>8060491
i don't think that i really need to say more than that to highlight how stupid someone must be to think that an author must directly discuss the internet to deal with themes of modernity or surveillance, lol. it's as though he wanted to talk about physical endurance, and this son of a bitch anon retard yelps, "how can you discuss difficult physical tasks without discuss lifting culture??? lol!" no doubt while slapping the top of his head because the effort made his brain hum

>>8060508
i still see no evidence that you've actually read anything by vollman or know anything about him

go read a book buddy. who knows maybe you'll learn something.

>>8060516

nothing vollman is interested in has anything to do with the internet, and you're retarded.

>>8060524
way to dodge the question. whereas i was 99% sure you havent read vollman, im not 100% sure.

this ist he problem with trying to talk about anything on /lit/ - people who've never read a book and know nothing about it nevertheless feel obligated to latch on to some random detail and sperg out about it, because they have some vague nebulous idea of what the book is like and what literature is/isn't. never change /lit/

>>8060524
>>8060533
holy fuck
I'm convinced neither of you have read Vollmann. Literally zero sources for your claims other than "some [unspecified] interviews"

>>8060557
https://newrepublic.com/article/118748/william-t-vollmanns-dangerously-uncorrupted-literary-mind

google exists you know

vollmann very famously hates/is obsessed with the internet lol it's not some outlandish claim

>>8060533

you're fucking retarded my man. no matter how much you've read of anyone, you're abjectly retarded if you think he's in anyway obligated to discuss the internet, or if somehow not discussing it is detrimental to him or anyone else. you're just a retarded, stupid dude.

>>8060587
>abjectly
what did he mean by this?

>>8060587
>you think he's in anyway obligated to discuss the internet

explained multiple times that's not what i mean. you really should work on reading comprehension.

also im glad you finally admitted you never read vollmann. kindly show yourself out of this thread.

>>8060604

I've read all of The Atlas, Europe Central, and the condensed version of Rising Up, Rising Down. get fucked, you idiot

>>8060608
sure you have buddy.

>>8059631
>billy "whores and igloos" vollmann
>2016

>>8060598
means hopelessly, anon

i've never read vollmann but im enjoying this thread. when autists collide.

>>8060616

>he's still posting

>>8060639
Yeah I'm the OP and I didn't expect more than five replies

>>8060608
How is rising up rising down? Would buying the full set be worth it?

>>8061196
dude u cant even get the unabridged they only printed like 1000 copies

>>8061203
? It's fifteen dollars on amazon right now

>>8061203
>>8061207
Forget that post, I thought it said abridged. The unabridged is like 700 bucks but id pay it if it's worth it

>>8059631
>So why aren't you reading this?

No interest.

I have a huge ass backlog I've got to finish

I've already read Pynchon's works.

>>8061213
i feel like it cant be worth it... i mean get the abridged version.. if you are starving for more then consider the full i guess.... i could never justify dropping 700 on a book.. it seems interesting though...

>>8059972
>Pinchas
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

>>8060458
>if you think vollman is setting out to write historical fiction you're severely misguided

I'm going to give your reading comprehension a little credit by assuming you haven't read this:

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/620/the-art-of-fiction-no-163-william-t-vollmann

>>8060490
more like william, v trollman

>>8060490
He's got the Innsmouth look about him.

>>8061257
>So they just imagine that I am a total loser
At least he's aware of his situation. Most of us had to wait until our early 20's to figure that out.

>>8061242
What are you hmmming about, exactly? It's just some self-published nobody. I'm sure a lot of them have made up ridiculous fake names like that.

>>8061289
Most of us don't have the money to hire hookers just so we can amateurishly paint them.

>>8061450
It's an expense for his writing, really.

>>8060037
*spits*
whatrr ye tryin te say?

>>8061257
>One of the things that I had to do occasionally while I was collecting information for that prostitute story, “Ladies and Red Lights” from The Rainbow Stories, was sit in a corner and pull down my pants and masturbate. I would pretend to do this while I was asking the prostitutes questions. Because otherwise, they were utterly afraid of me and utterly miserable, thinking I was a cop.
A revolting man, both inside and out.

>>8062358
A good writer, though.

Wouldn't will I am his voll

T. Mann

>>8062451
t. Wyatt Mann.

I'm reading whores for gloria and it's so fucking depressing

>>8063592
How are you liking it otherwise?

Any other anons read any Vollmann?

I AM I AM I AM I AM I AM I AM I AM IT'S REALLY GOOD! #MYFIRSTVOLLMANN! YOLO!